After a debilitating injury, an avid runner is forced to quit the sport she loves. What happens when you have to give up your body—and your soul?

I spotted my target in the last stretch of Cape Cod's annual Falmouth 7.1-mile Road Race. She had long, slim legs, a narrow waist, and sylphlike biceps that suggested she not only hit the treadmill but the free weights, too. I cranked up my pace to draw even with her on the hill. It was a climb, but all that lay ahead was a flat sprint followed by a downhill chute to the finish. I knew I could smoke it, and I could tell from her drooping shoulders that she was tiring. As I surged past her, arms swinging, I imagined her reaction. "You?!" she'd sputter in disbelief, confounded by my thickset legs and full hips.

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I'd spent two decades sweating out endless sprints, drills, and distance races, but I'd never managed to develop the lithe, equine limbs and tight glutes of a competitive racer. I was fit but compact, more square-shaped than streamlined. And in a race, I was an unassuming thoroughbred with a battle plan. After the gun fired, I'd hang in with the trim and taut for miles, waiting patiently until some fell back. Then I'd crank up my pace and leave them behind. The smug thrill I got from knowing that my sturdy gams, handed down from generations of pork-loving Europeans, were kicking dust on my competitors powered me to some impressive finishes.

For 22 years (almost 75 percent of my life), lacing up for a run was as much a part of my daily routine as brushing my teeth. I've sped through several brisk marathons and a 24-hour, 200-mile team relay, dashed under St. Louis' Gateway Arch and over the Golden Gate Bridge, startled wild rabbits in the Edinburgh hills, run laps around a castle in Osaka, and sprinted along ­Portugal's Algarve. Like many die-hard road warriors, I've found running to be ex­tremely therapeutic. I'm an obsessive worrier, and the metronomic pounding of my feet on the street helps me sort through my churning thoughts. I have a mental GPS that matches up life-changing meditations with specific locations: the riverside bike path where I pondered a major career change; the concrete steps I climbed up and down while deciding whether to move out of my boyfriend's apartment.

Even as a kid, I knew there was something singular about the sport. My dad signed me up for my first 5K when I was 11, and though my memories of that dead-of-summer race are blurred with sweat and pain, something deep inside me responded to the demands to go faster, farther, harder. I kept hurtling myself forward not because I wanted to, but because I couldn't stop. At the finish line, I felt triumphant and gulped water with a previously untapped primal thirst.

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During my teen years, running continued to change me not only mentally but physically, in a more obvious way than puberty or genetics ever did. I developed quads before cleavage, and my calves, pumped up from my daily track practice, bulged like Popeye's forearms. They were so conspicuous that one group of boys used to tease me, mooing like cows whenever I entered a room (calves, cows–get it?). Instead of becoming insecure about my legs, I focused on how they'd earned me medals and a title as cocaptain of the track and cross-country teams. For the boys' barnyard chorus, I'd smile and flash a little leg. "Jealous?" I'd tease.

Throughout high school, I wasn't as saddled with body issues as many of my friends were; with running, my physical imperfections could be spun into assets. Think I'm flat-chested? Less wind resistance, less drag. Too short? Being low to the ground helps me scurry up hills. I was running regularly, with a postman's disregard for inclement weather, and I never had a clue how much I weighed. The only numbers that mattered were mileage, pace, and PR (runner's shorthand for "personal record"). I didn't need the scale to tell me what I looked like to others because I knew how I felt: fast, tight, strong.

Even in shaping my relationship with food, running was both an excuse and an explanation: I work out like a runner, ergo I can eat like a runner. In college, I fell in with a clique of poised, beautiful women who were constantly fretting about their bodies. My friends' pre-party routine involved trying on different outfits, which I'd then critique while munching on peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches intended to prevent a hangover from slowing me down the next day. The act of weight maintenance always seemed more mentally taxing for me than following my coaches' orders.

It makes sense that I met the love of my life at the starting line of the Staten Island half-marathon. On our first date, we feasted on a carb-heavy Italian spread the night before we planned on racing another 13.1. This patient man, who ran faster than I did but would slow to accommodate my pace, also shared my fitness philosophy: You are what you run. Eight years later, he asked me to marry him midway through a scenic jaunt while we were pausing for a water break. When visualizing our wedding, we wanted to look like the sporty couple we were, so we decided to train for the celebration as we would for a race.

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Less than one week after we foolishly amped up our mileage, my feet started to ache, and my soles burned whenever I stood on my toes. Seventy percent of runners suffer injuries, according to the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, and I'd already made my way through a medical textbook of ailments: shin splints, hamstring strains, bursitis, tendonitis, patellofemoral pain, a bad infection (I tripped in a cross-country race and body-surfed down a slope, embedding gravel into my knee).

Experience had taught me to catch the problem before it worsened, and our wedding was still six months away—plenty of time to heal, I thought. I was willing to back off if it meant I'd be able to wear the shoes a friend had given me as a shower present: pale gold Kate Spade heels. Sure that I'd be back on my feet soon, my fiancé and I planned to lead a "group jog" on the morning of the wedding (which would make me feel better about having all eyes on me in my low-cut, back-baring dress).

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The first doctor I consulted told me that I was getting old—he estimated that 33 equaled something like 73 in runner's years—and advised me to hang up my sneakers. The second didn't understand my devotion to running ("You can work up quite a sweat on the stationary bike!"). The third, John Connors, DPM, was a board-certified sports podiatrist who'd treated such world-class runners as Shannon Rowbury, 2008 Olympian, and Khalid Khannouchi, former world-record holder in the marathon. As soon as I walked into his office, he started strategizing my return to the asphalt.

Connors confirmed that I had sesamoiditis, which is an irritation of the pea-sized bones within the tendons that run to the big toe. The best therapy is to stay off your feet—an impossibility given that I live in New York City. His course of treatment included anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen, occasional injections of the steroid dexamethasone sodium phosphate, and rest, ice, and custom orthotics to be worn in all of my shoes. He then delivered the blow: Because there is a limited blood supply to the sesamoids, this injury often becomes chronic, and sometimes even takes years to recover from. Needless to say, I wore flats to my wedding, and I have every day since.

In fact, I often wear running sneakers, which is ironic considering that I've barely run over the past two years. When I try to pick up speed, the balls of my feet become tender and swollen. I haven't dared enter a race, because I'm worried that the enthusiasm and adrenaline rush will push me further than my traitorous feet can handle.

Frances Flint, PhD, an athletic trainer and consultant in sport psychology at York University in Canada and an authority on athletic injuries, explains that the piercing disdain I feel toward my faltering phalanges is normal. "We don't have a mind-body dichotomy," she says. "We're all one piece. But what we often hear from athletes is a disassociation with the injured part. They'll say things like, `I can't believe my ankle let me down again.' They develop a different relationship with that body part."

Healing that relationship can be just as tricky as healing the injury. When my feet throb during my six-block walk to the subway I often find myself asking, How will I ever trust them enough to push the rest of my body to its physical limit? To hurl myself past a competitor or toward a finish line?

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Connors is cautiously hopeful. He prescribes carefully reintegrating exercises into my routine and making adjustments when I feel discomfort or pain; using an elliptical machine, which mimics the running motion without impact; and hitting the treadmill or soft dirt trails.

Dirt trails are rare in the concrete jungle, so the gym, which I formerly viewed as a last resort, has become my prison. I'm a gym rat—or, rather, a runner trapped in a gym. My reluctant daily visits have made me a little bulkier (especially in those areas—the glutes and quads—worked mercilessly by the stationary bike), but admittedly more toned. In the past, if I had a spare minute, I'd squeeze in an extra mile. Now I have more time to stretch, sculpt, crunch (i.e., all the things trainers tell us we should do), and it's paid off: I've spotted shadows of definition on my arms. Instead of looking like I'm carrying a small fanny pack around my waist, my new interest in Pilates has given me a sleek minaudière of a tummy (Flint explained that running strengthens the hip flexors but does very little for the corresponding abdominal muscles).

And yet, even when I'm slicing through elliptical intervals, chasing down that elusive runner's high (which has been proven to result from any intense, sustained cardio activity), I feel demoralized. It's impossible to get psyched about beating my meaningless treadmill times, and the gym's other acolytes aren't interested in competing with me. It feels as if we're all looking at ourselves in the mirror, measuring our progress by how much our hips shrink or our muscles grow, but never covering any real distance.

Working out in an enclosed space, my mind doesn't slip into that meditative state. There's no horizon to chase, no undulating terrain to navigate. I count down the minutes—something I rarely did during an outdoor workout.

What I've discovered over these past 28 months of rehab is that running satisfies in a way that few other activities can. Juli Furtado, a former professional skier who had blown out both knees and retired from racing by age 21, can totally relate. With the resiliency of a true athlete, Furtado transitioned seamlessly to competitive mountain biking and was one of the first females to compete in that sport in the 1996 Olympic Games. A year later, Furtado contracted lupus and had to give up her biking career as well. However, on good days, she's still able to compete in trail races—and win them. "I'm so sorry to hear about your injury," this multi-sport champion, this survivor of serious health challenges, says to me. "That really sucks. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't run."

Those are crushing words to digest. Obviously, I'm thankful that aside from my foot injury, I'm healthy and not suffering from something more serious. But I desperately miss streaking around town in nothing but a sports bra and split-shorts, and I long to careen down a hill like I've got wheels on my feet. And I still visualize running with my husband (who's also nursing an injury), discovering new routes together. When I think about my college teammate who's still tackling marathons, I feel like I'm falling back from the pack. It's partly why I still check in with my doctor on a near-monthly basis, hoping that my next appointment will be the one where I'll be able to share the news of a 10K finish. The status reports I give Connors are always the same: "They still hurt."

I do have one final, drastic option: I could ask Connors to take out my sesamoids, but that's an irreversible move that could cure the pain forever but could also cause biomechanical imbalance and other complications. We both agree that I'm not there—yet. I still believe that if I keep resting, icing, and practically gluing orthotics to my feet, they'll heal. I just can't accept the fact that my racing days may be over and I'll never again live in that runner's body that fit me so well. This is a temporary setback, I think each time I renew my gym membership.

Outwardly, I've moved on. Twenty months after sesamoiditis struck, I hosted a breakfast party to cheer on the participants in the New York City Marathon. Standing on my corner at mile 8.2, clapping for sweaty strangers as they passed, I thought about how fulfilling it was to test oneself with a big, impressive race. I couldn't remember the last time I'd challenged my body in that way. A friend's voice broke my reverie: "Training for anything?" she asked, unaware of my injury. "Nope. I don't run anymore," I replied. To myself, I added, But that doesn't mean I won't run again.